Graphics:For this review I will be critiquing the PC version of the game. The graphics of the PC version are a major upgrade to the XBOX 360 version with realistic shadows, higher resolution textures, and an overall better patina in terms of color palette and overall aesthetics. It is unfortunate that while the game looks stellar on the PC version over its console version, the game is still relatively ugly. The world is draped in drab browns and yellows and, while it takes place in the American Midwest, not much is done to make the more habitable areas of the map look any different from one another. You’ll find yourself moving from one dilapidated farmhouse to the next, with not much to look at in between while travelling the majority of the map.

State Of Decay

State of Decay is the zombie game we’ve all been waiting for. The scope of the project was ambitious for indie developer Undead Labs; while the game stumbles under its own weight most of the time it’s nothing but fun to play. The difficulty is high in the beginning and this may put off many players, but the challenge is trying to get your rag tag team of survivors to carve out a foothold in this hostile post-apocalyptic world. While the game encompasses an open and explorable world, resource and personnel management, side-missions, and a simple story narrative, the game attempts to mash too many disparate mechanics together and while most are successful none are absolutely great. Forgiveness must be given as this game was developed by a small developer and, considering what they have been able to achieve with such limited resources, State of Decay is unlike anything you will play to date.

Pros:Unique gameplay found nowhere elseSuperb music and soundBeautiful graphics for small budget

Cons:Frustrating controlsUninspired storyMany game elements not fully developed

Score:7/10

While the game boasts an open world for the intrepid player to explore, in reality there are only a few small clusters of buildings between the games two largest formerly human-inhabited settlements. As the player traverses the space between the two running supply missions or story missions it quickly becomes apparent that most of the map is simply large, open fields with not much to observe. Along the way you’ll discover a few roadside attractions to stop and gawk at before hot heeling it back to your car as a hoard of zombies, or more terrifyingly the “boss” zombies such as a Feral, become aware of your presence. The zombies themselves are modeled quite well. Flesh looks desiccated and rotten, the eyes glow with an intense red color so they can be seen slightly more easily at night, and tattered clothes cling to the bony remains. It’s nothing video gamers haven’t seen before, but the zombie models fit well into the overall look of the game. What really detracts from what could be considered passable graphic fidelity is the major clipping, horrifyingly stiff character models, almost nonexistent lip syncing, and muddy textures when the player is up close and personal with the game world. A good example is the terrifying Feral zombie. From afar you get a sense that this is no normal zombie; it’s large even hunched over, but up close you really get a sense of just how cheap looking it really is. The rotting flesh is really just a low resolution texture that looks like a 2D sprite was wrapped hastily over a 3D wire frame. At a distance the whole game world looks beautiful, dripping in golden light under the Midwestern sun, blanketed in moonlight with only your car headlights giving you a vague idea of what’s on the road ahead at night, but like the Mona Lisa it’s nothing more than an unfinished-looking masterpiece when viewed up close. Even though the bleak yellow and brown saturation the game world was given, everything about the graphical quality of the PC version of this game is acceptable. Don’t expect Far Cry 3 or Crysis level panache; you’ll find that in its own weird way the game world is actually something quite nice to behold. And when you factor in the small development team and equally cash-strapped budget they were working with it’s amazing they were able to produce even half of what they actually did. When viewed through the right lens, the graphics of the game are breathtaking.

Sound: The audio in State of Decay is handled quite well in most aspects. Ambient sounds set the mood for your lone controlled survivor as he or she travels across the game world on foot; birds chirp in the woods and the low growls of nearby zombies alerts you to their presence. Locked doors thunk against the jamb as your character crashes into them with their shoulder and gunshots sound realistic if a bit hollow and uninspired. Shotguns bellow as they unleash their buckshot payload and pistols tink as the next bullet enters the tiny chamber. Overall environmental and object sounds are handled well; it’s the empty voice acting that causes the house of cards to crumple. You’ll never quite come to sympathize, or even like for that matter, any of the characters randomly generated in the game. You’ll also most likely find it hard to connect with any of the prerequisite characters the game gives you such as Marcus the main character, Ed, Maya, or any of the other characters you’ll meet along the way. The voice acting is mostly cringe-worthy and does little to add anything to the overall feel of the game. It’s unfortunate that the flimsy story is presented by such lackluster acting. If the actors were able to believably deliver the story it may have been less harsh on the ears. As it stands the ho-hum, done-to-death zombie narrative is buried beneath the hackneyed attempts at drama. Where the game’s audio really shines through is the fact that sound is used as an attractant to the undead creatures that lurk in the streets and in the dark corners of the buildings left to decay. Do you hastily force your character to search the cupboard looking for food and risk attracting a horde of zombies as you clank and crash about, or do you play it safe, take your time being quiet, and risk the chance of being caught off guard by a wandering Feral? Sound challenges the player to make hard choices, and in this game choices have serious consequences, most of which are fatal. The other gleaming bright spot of the game’s audio is the music. Banjos twang a sort of country lullaby as you coast along the mostly deserted highways, the main menu has music that really sets the mood for your experience, and a brutal track kicks in when you’re suddenly surrounded by a large group of the undead. Overall the game has passable audio. The ambient sound effects, music, and other miscellaneous sound effects are all high quality and immersive. The only stumbling block is the voice acting which is about as scary as the zombie hoards you’ll be fighting to keep at bay. And trust me, these zombies are terrifying.

Gameplay: If you’re looking for terror in a game you won’t have to go much further than State of Decay. This reviewer must admit he didn’t even attempt the control the game via the keyboard and mouse. I took one look at the key map and said, “Forget it!” With a little bit of Internet research I discovered that the game can be played with an XBOX 360 controller or an emulated PlayStation 3 controller. I downloaded the program needed, hooked my PS3 controller into my computer’s USB port, and with a little setup I was running the game with controller support and was having a blast. This game was originally designed on the XBOX Arcade and the PC port seems to have tacked on keyboard and mouse support. I recommend using a game pad, either third party or an XBOX 360 or PS3 controller, to play this game as it makes controlling everything much easier. For those PC game purists who refuse to use a game pad all I can say is good luck. Even with the controller making movement easier and navigating the world less perilous, aiming is still terribly difficult. The beasties in State of Decay are an actual challenge; forget the fear of running out bullets, attempting to take on more than three zombies in this world is a death sentence. You’ll find your heart racing as you narrowly escape their clutches or succumb to their gaping jaws. The game mainly consists of the player controlling a single character from your pool of survivors, venturing out into the game world to search the empty buildings for guns, ammunition, food, and other items to keep your survivors armed, fed, and with building materials to upgrade your camp. Base building is something I wish was more interactive. You basically plot out what areas are to be used for beds, medical treatment, and so on but there’s no way for the currently controlled character to interact with anything inside your camp. If you run your character to the point of exhaustion, you’ll have to bring them home and switch them out for a different survivor to allow them to rest. I understand the concept is to keep you moving between survivors and spreading out the experience wealth, but more interactivity in the base to while away the time would have been nice. Even still it keeps the tension high as low level survivors must be kept close to home until they’re capable of going out alone and the game makes sure you can’t monopolize one survivor as this would ruin the challenge. Every time you set out into the world you run the real risk of getting your character killed if you’re not careful and fail to plan ahead. And as in many survival simulation games out there death, just as in the real world, is permanent. Once a character is killed they’re lost from the game forever, less you feel compelled to start a new game from scratch. And in some instances the character may come back as a zombie themself to terrorize the remaining survivors you’re desperately trying to keep alive. You’ll be forced to go on scavenging runs as your base will run critically low on supplies if you don’t, and an unprepared survivor in this world won’t last more than a few meters away from camp before becoming overrun and their brains scooped out and eaten like a hot fudge sundae. Cars help keep your survivor safe and give them a quick method of escape if they wind up in a jam, but they can only take so much abuse before they explode. They’re also noisy and zombies come out of the woodwork as you drive past. One wrong move and you may find your car disabled, far from home, and woefully unprepared for the trek home. With lots of luck you’ll make it someplace safe to recover but creatures are lurking everywhere in this game world and these zombies are quick once they detect you. State of Decay presents itself in such a convincing manner that the clumsy controls and funny looking animations and clipping errors seem to blend into the other noticeable seam work. It’s like the over confident party guest who’s self-assured but not overbearing and isn’t afraid to show some of his flaws. You’re just attracted to people like that, curious to see what makes them tick, and to try to figure out how you can be like them. State of Decay is this kind of confident, but it requires time and experimentation to figure out how all the gears work together. The game is exactly what we’ve been looking for and the small development team is proud to show off their hard work even if you can see some of the stitching holding many game elements loosely together. While the narrative is so transparent you can see the end coming miles before it arrives, it’s just enough to keep you moving from one plot mission to the next. The game also thrusts you into the thick of things the moment the screen fades in from black. With almost no tutorial you’re left to figure out many of the mechanics on your own. I suspect that if the real world were suddenly thrust into the chaos of a zombie apocalypse we wouldn’t know quite what to do either and only those with a keen eye and cunning would live another day. The game does have a few quirky details that, while not game breaking, are sure to annoy some. The game continues to crunch it’s behind the scenes data while you’re not playing. I learned this the hard way after I set the game aside for a few days only to discover most of my clan had been killed or went missing while I was occupying myself with something other than video games. While this may interest some players I found it just a little presumptuous of the game to assume I was going to play nightly or nearly every night. I don’t mind having to babysit my characters while I’m playing but it’s another thing to assume I’m going to constantly be checking on them daily. The in-game menu is also clumsy to navigate and contains too much information than is actually needed. Each character comes with a set of predetermined traits that affect their ability to run long distances, scavenge effectively, shoot straight and other game functions. Sorting through all this information may yield some interesting insight into the character you want to play in terms of how to level them up but it does nothing to add any deep or lasting connection to the player. And that’s a shame since you will ultimately come to like a few of the survivors in your care; especially when you’ve spent a lot of time upgrading your favorite survivor only to have them succumb to a group of zombies because you didn’t prepare enough before heading out or, dare I say, due to the game being exceptionally unfair or having your controls suddenly not work as anticipated. It adds a sense of realism to the game which is appreciated, but it also makes the difficulty crushing at some points and I threw my controller down more than once in frustration. However, once I figured out that characters can level up and specialize in different weapons and those upgrades and specializations came with perks, the game really opened up. Runs were still dangerous if I was unaware, but they became manageable and less likely to fail. All these small nuances are meant to be discovered I believe, and until your survivors true potential is revealed you’re going to be sitting at the edge of your chair any time you have to venture out. But even for all those frustrating moments, the times you find yourself screaming at your screen “Run, damnit, RUN FASTER!”, the moment you watch your first survivor that you’ve invested hours upon hours in get ripped in half, and the times you find yourself shaking your head wondering why you’re even playing this damn game at all, you’ll keep coming back. You won’t find a game like this anywhere else and I must applaud Undead Labs for trying to take such an enormous concept and wrap it up as tightly as they did. The game is captivating even with all its faults showing as they do. The game attempts to do so much and in the process does only some things exceptionally,such as building atmosphere and tension, and most everything else mediocre at best such as the wonky controls, blasé graphics, and worthless story. I’ve seen other video gamers say to skip this and go with The Last of Us by Naughty Dog or The Walking Dead by Tell Tale Games, but to those folks I say you’re missing the point. The Walking Dead is great as an interactive story and The Last of Us is in a league of its own compared to State of Decay, but neither game fills the role that this game does. Even though the game tries to do everything and basically only scratches the surface of what could be possible with a little more time and development, you won’t find anything like it on the market today.

Final Thoughts: I deliberated on whether to buy this game or not, but after clocking in around 38 hours with it I’m so glad I took the plunge. The game, despite its shortcomings and fumbles, will absolutely draw you in. Where the story runs thin you’ll find yourself making your own narrative and creating your own legend for each of your survivors. Where the game itself doesn’t do much to care whether your survivors live or die, especially after listening to the awful voice overs that cycle around and around, human nature will fill in the gaps. We’re programmed to care for other humans either real or imaginary (unless you’re a sociopath…there’s games out there for you I’m sure) and by virtue of our nature you’ll find yourself compelled to keep your survivors alive as long as possible and will feel a pang of guilt when one perishes. When you begin to notice the recycling of missions and being thinking the game is going to grow stale, the unpredictable nature of the programming ensures that each moment you step outside the safe zone of your base anything can happen in this world. The cranky controls make sure you’re never that good as to avoid every obstacle the game tries to toss your way, and limiting functions such as a stamina bar that dictates how far you can run before your character is forced into a crippling overexerted gait ensure that the danger the zombies present is real and unavoidable. Even the most seasoned survivor can be overwhelmed and brutally killed right before your eyes, your mouth agape, as you wonder what you could have done differently to avoid this whole mess. State of Decay is one of those rare games that you must play; it’s less passive than most games, less a method to deliver a story with moments of action in between. This game is an experience and one that cannot be missed. You’ll feel accomplished helping out a group of stranded survivors, making a successful supply run, or upgrading your base camp with some creature comforts. You will most likely tell tales to your friends of how your strongest character took on a whole horde with nothing more than a sledge hammer. This is the zombie game we’ve been wanting and waiting for and Undead Labs has delivered it. It may be rough around the edges with some questionable mechanics and it may be shallow in terms of depth of story and overall interactivity, but for what it’s worth State of Decay is worth every second you can spare it.